That Smell Isn't the Canal

WASHINGTON - Ah, it's summer in the metro area, and yes, it smells throughout the C&O Canal National Historic Park. The hotter it gets, the worse the smell gets.

"It was quite odiferous," says Matthew Logan, executive director of the Potomac Conservancy about the foul smell coming from 42 vents along the C&O Canal. The vents are along a sewer line that carries 50 million gallons of waste a day.

"It smells exactly like you would expect a massive sewer pipe to smell like, which is a shame in a national park."

People who live in the Maryland communities of Cabin John and Glen Echo have long complained about it, so have joggers along the C&O Canal.

The sewer line starts near Dulles International Airport, crosses the Potomac River above Great Falls and then goes down C&O Canal to Blue Plains Treatment Plant. It carries sewage from Loudoun and Fairfax counties in Virginia, Montgomery County, Md., and D.C.

"This is a horrible odor. This is the kind of odor where you want to go home, take a shower and scrub your clothes. It is really, really awful," says Logan whose organization lost a lawsuit over the issue and is now appealing.

The sewer pipe was built before the national park.

The D.C. Water and Sewer Authority has had plans in the works since 1999 to correct the problem. Six facilities would be built to filter the air. Three would be in Montgomery County and one each in the other three jurisdictions. Right now, WASA is using gel buckets and carbon filters to try to reduce the odor.

Each year the project gets pushed back, in part because 30 permits from various jurisdictions are needed. The price tag is now up to $11.7 million.

"Hopefully, if all goes as planned we can start construction in spring 2006," says WASA spokeswoman Michele Quander-Collins.

"We have very little confidence they will do it in a reasonable time," Logan says.

(Copyright 2005 by WTOP. All Rights Reserved.)